Only rarely do two major world events coincide
in one location. That’s happening now in Kashmir,
in northern Pakistan, which is the scene of both
the United States’ struggle against al-Qaeda, as
well as the latest flare-up between India and
Pakistan.
Because the first event partially caused the
second, and because both India and Pakistan are
U.S. allies against al-Qaeda, it’s likely
Americans will be involved in negotiating a
settlement in Kashmir. But most Americans know
little about the issues involved — hence I’ll
provide a primer. I traveled to the region doing
research in 1993 and 1994.
Pashtunistan means the land of the
Pashtuns. Pashtuns are the dominant ethnic group
in northern Pakistan and in large parts of
Afghanistan. Geographically, Pashtunistan spans
both countries, with some Pashtuns living in India
and some in western China.
Afghanistan would mean the land of the
Afghans, but it’s really just a name that the
British made up when they divided up the region as
they abandoned their colonies. One of the British
colonial provinces was called Afghania, so
they used that name, even though that province is
now part of Pakistan. Afghan is not an
ethnicity — which Tajik, Pashtun, Uzbek, and
Hazzara are — it’s just a nationality. Residents
of Afghanistan describe themselves by their
ethnicity, and Pashtun is the closest they’ve got
to a national ethnicity — for example, one
national language is Pashto. By quirks
of history, the Tajiks and Uzbeks ended up with
their own countries (Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,
the former Soviet republics which border
Afghanistan on the north), while the Pashtuns and
Hazarras did not.
The ethnicity news from Afghanistan focused on
the Taliban (dominated by Pashtuns) versus the
Northern Alliance (dominated by Tajiks, Uzbeks,
and Hazzaras). The primary task of the new
Afghanistan is to maintain a stable multi-ethnic
government that addresses the concerns of all four
major ethnic groups. This task is made somewhat
easier because they all share the same religion,
Islam, although there is a religious split amongst
the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite minority.
Pakistan assisted the Taliban in large part
because they were ethnic brethren; their rationale
for assisting the new government is that they are
at least all religious brethren.
On the other side of Pashtunistan, the border
between India and Pakistan marks both an ethnic
and religious divide, between Pashtun Muslims in
Pakistan and Hindus in India (the ethnicity of
Indians varies by region, but a popular newspaper
there is The Hindustan Times). The ethnic and
religious differences make resolving this dispute
more difficult — and indeed, it has been an
ongoing battle for 52 years, including several
major wars. The wars are over where the border lay
— when Britain decolonialized in 1947, they let
each province decide whether to join either
Pakistan or India — and the primarily Muslim
Kashmir joined India based on the choice of its
Hindu leader, instead of based on a Muslim
plebiscite vote. The world pays more attention
today because both India and Pakistan exploded
nuclear weapons in 1998, hence making a
possibility of nuclear war in Kashmir.
Then there’s China, yet another nuclear power,
which borders India and Pakistan as well as
Afghanistan. China too has a border dispute with
India — both claim that their part of Kashmir
extends well into the other country’s territory.
China previously had the same dispute with
Pakistan, making a mess for mapmakers, but they
resolved their differences so that both could
focus their military attention on India.
The result of the China-Pakistan settlement was
a peaceful undisputed border and a road across it
known as The Karakoram Highway. The KKH is
perhaps the world’s most political road — a symbol
of unity against India. The KKH traverses the
Karakoram Mountains, part of the Himalayas, and in
my five days on it, I experienced three
earthquakes. Only by daily boulder-moving efforts
does the KKH remain open — the entire region is as
seismologically unstable as it is politically
unstable.
The region of China on the KKH is called
Xinjiang Province by the Chinese, but is called
Uighurstan by the Muslim separatists who live
there. Chinese efforts at suppressing the ongoing
Uighur rebellion have been bloodier than in
neighboring Tibet. The Chinese have been more
successful in keeping the Uighurs out of the news,
which is why most Americans have only heard of
Tibet (thanks to the Dalai Lama’s publicity). The
price that America paid for China’s acquiescence
to our war in Afghanistan has been that the U.S.
has stopped all criticism of China’s suppression
activities in both Tibet and Uighurstan.
So what’s next? For better or worse, the U.S.
is involved in a volatile region. President Bush
has accepted U.S. responsibility for
nation-building in Afghanistan, which commits us
to a long-term presence. Until October, Pakistan
was on the U.S.’s watch-list of terrorist
sponsors, and only by working with the U.S. war
effort has Pakistan moved off that list. The
people of Pakistan have little unanimity behind
their government’s actions, however, and the
country will require a lot of attention (plus a
lot of American money) to stay on our side instead
of becoming a new base for escaping al-Qaeda and
Taliban members. Our attention in Pakistan must
focus on negotiating the Kashmir issue — part of
the reason the issue has flared up recently is
because Pakistan and India know that world
attention is on them, and perhaps hope the
attention will help resolve an otherwise
irresolvable dispute. And China must be involved
in the resolution as well — besides their dispute
with India over Kashmir, the two countries
regularly shoot at each other in Assam and other
border areas.
The risks are high: three nuclear powers with
actively disputed borders. But the potential
benefits are high too: American diplomacy and
foreign aid have a unique opportunity to calm a
region that has been embroiled in conflict for
over half a century. Let's roll.
— Jesse Gordon is a regular lecturer at the
Cambridge Center for Adult Education. His slide
show and lecture on Kashmir and Pashtunistan will
be presented at the CCAE at 56 Brattle Street, at
8 p.m. Jan. 14. Call CCAE at 617-547-6789. View a
preview at http://www.webmerchants.com/pashtunistan/.
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